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Game Devs on the CPU Wars (tm)

I noticed this link to VoodooExtreme while surfing through the Tech Report. While not directly SMP related, VE has gathered the opinions of various high-profile game developers regarding processors. What does "the Carmack" have in his box? Does he even care? You can get the goods right here, but here is one quote I found pretty interesting:

The thing that's really annoyed me about Intel is that they actually charge developers to add support for their processors. Intel is selling VTune, (a SEE optimization tool) to developers for around $200. I just see this as pure ludicrous, as they are in the _hardware_ business, NOT the software business. If they are smart at all they will realize this mistake they're making and put every effort they have into making it easy on giving support to developers.

AMD has done the _smart_ thing and has also developed a similar program to VTune (excepts helps add's optimize code for 3dnow), and has released it for free on their webpage. The decision is braindead for what CPU extensions developers are likely going to support, and it shows in todays games.

[Edit] I just finished reading the article and I noticed this little gem from Brian Hook:

- Athlon rocks. Very fast, powerful.- I'm execited about Athlon and 760MP configurations- Athlon4 also rocks.- I'm not an OC enthusiast or a home PC builder, so not being able to find a good Athlon machine from a "big name" company like Dell bothers me...

...My main workstation is a dual P3/933 w/ PC600 512MB (ugh) RDRAM. Why the lame config? Bought it 7 months ago when RDRAM was stupid expensive but I still wanted dual processors, so I compromised by getting cheap RAM. In another few months I'll probably get an Athlon 1.5Ghz w/ nForce motherboard and 1GB of RAM as my main dev machine.

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posty
Beach Bum

Posts: 932
Joined: 2000-05-30

#9911 Posted on: 07/10/2001 08:53 AM

The thing that's really annoyed me about Intel is that they actually charge developers to add support for their processors. Intel is selling VTune, (a SEE optimization tool) to developers for around $200. I just see this as pure ludicrous, as they are in the _hardware_ business, NOT the software business. If they are smart at all they will realize this mistake they're making and put every effort they have into making it easy on giving support to developers.

That has always been Intel

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joker
Convinced D6VAA User

Posts: 143
Joined: 2000-02-06

#9912 Posted on: 07/10/2001 01:57 PM
Well, I answered the Dell survey in the first few days it was up, and I was all for AMD. Prolly pulled it cuz they got frightened by all the " 20 thumbs down" Intel and "2 Thumbs up" AMD comments *smYrk*Ezekiel 25:17The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

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glitch
Registered User

Posts: 1171
Joined: 2000-11-18

#9913 Posted on: 07/11/2001 05:47 PMThe thing that's really annoyed me about Intel is that they actually charge developers to add support for their processors. Intel is selling VTune, (a SEE optimization tool) to developers for around $200. I just see this as pure ludicrous, as they are in the _hardware_ business, NOT the software business. If they are smart at all they will realize this mistake they're
making and put every effort they have into making it easy on giving support to developers.
[\quote]
(this was from Nathan d'Obrenan, Firetoads Software )

i disagree with this.

intel is in business, and has several foci.

they own at least one compiler company (KAI, which they purchased a year ago) and would probably have had a larger software presence were it not for bill gates yelling at andy grove.

and intel does provide quite a few useful things for developers free of charge -- things like the math kernel library (MKL) and the JPEG library (IJL). of course, these make it easy for developers to add features to their programs that make them rely on intel CPU's.

i haven't tried VTune yet, but if it is a good piece of software i see no reason for them not to sell it.
$200 is not a huge cost for a video game project -- it is at most a few hours of programming time. if it saves a project some effort, then it is worth the cost.